As you may know by now, Patch 3.3 has been on the PTR for quite some time now. I’ve dabbled on this phase of testing on various classes pvping, as well as trying the new instances and quest lines. With a rumor going around about this patch coming to live next week I’d like to go over a few things about the priest changes from my own experiences. My review won’t be too statistical or anything of that nature, just my own opinions that you may or may not agree with. (INC WALL OF TEXT)
World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.3.0
Classes: General
- Spell Mana Costs: These costs have been reduced for almost all lower level spell ranks. In general, if a spell decreased in cost with a higher level rank in patch 3.2.0, that spell now has the decreased cost at all ranks. In addition, spells learned before level 20 with reduced cast times and/or durations have even further reduced mana costs, proportionate to their reduction in cast time or damage.
Priests
- Divine Hymn: The cooldown on this spell has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.
- Power Word: Shield: This spell can now be cast on non-raid/party friendly targets.
- Talents:Shadow;;
- Improved Devouring Plague: This spell now deals 10/20/30% of its total periodic effect instantly, up from 5/10/15%.
- Mind Flay: The range of this ability has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
- Shadowform: This talent also now causes Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch to benefit from haste. Both the period length and the duration of these spells will be reduced by haste. In addition, the mana cost has been reduced from 32% to 13% of base mana.
- Vampiric Embrace: This talent now provides a 30-minute buff that cannot be dispelled, instead of a target debuff and only generates healing for single-target shadow damage spells.
- Pet
- Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pet takes from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.
User Interface
Buffs and Debuffs: This is a new section added to Interface Options.
- New option – Castable Debuffs: Enabling this will cause only debuffs you have cast on an enemy target to appear.
- New option – Consolidate Buffs: Enabling this adds a buff consolidation box near the mini-map. Very short term buffs (e.g. Replenishment) and very long term buffs (e.g. Prayer of Fortitude) are filtered into the buff box. The icons are stacked here, but they can still be seen by moving the mouse cursor over the buff box. Long term buffs will move out of the box when they are about to expire. Buffs such as important procs (e.g. Art of War, Maelstrom Weapon), cooldowns (e.g. Bloodlust / Heroism, Combustion) or limited in range (e.g. totems and paladin auras) are always displayed.
Professions
Enchanting
- Enchant Weapon – Black Magic: This enchantment now sometimes increases haste rating for the caster rather than inflicting the caster’s target with a damage-over-time effect. It is also now triggered by landing any harmful spell rather than inflicting damage with a spell.
Items
Priests
- Glyph of Mind Flay: This glyph now increases the damage done by Mind Flay by 10% when the target is afflicted with Shadow Word: Pain.
- Glyph of Shadow Word: Pain: The periodic damage ticks of Shadow Word: Pain now restore 1% of the priest’s base mana with this glyph.
- Glyph of Shadow: While in Shadowform, this glyph causes non-periodic spell critical strikes to increase spell power by 30%, up from 10%, of the priest’s total spirit for 10 seconds.
Bug Fixes
Priests
- Glyph of Power Word: Shield: The heal caused by this glyph will now correctly use the casting priest’s critical strike chance instead of the target’s.
- Inspiration: The tooltip now correctly indicates that it also functions with Prayer of Mending.
- Levitate: This spell can now activate trinkets that can trigger from casting a helpful spell.
- Mass Dispel: Some trinkets which were not triggered properly by this spell will now work correctly when Mass Dispel is cast.
- Mind Flay: The rank 1 tooltip has been corrected to indicate the accurate damage and snare effect. In addition, this ability will now work correctly with [target=focus] and [target=mouseover] macros.
- Prayer of Mending: Inspiration and Divine Aegis can no longer be incorrectly triggered by this spell for priests who do not have those talents.
- Silence: Updated tooltip to include the functionality that this ability also interrupts spellcasting on NPCs.
- Spirit Tap: This talent can no longer be triggered by the death of the priest’s Jewelcrafter Stone Statues.
Classes:General (Update)
-Spell mana costs being reduced seems to be trying to bring back Downranking for healers. At least from what I’ve heard. I am somewhat neutral on this myself. I’ve never been a big fan of downranking, and in WOTLK it seems that sometimes as a healer I have too much mana to spare. Although on healing intensive fights i’m sure this change may prove it’s worth. So, disregard this crossed out text. The downranking is still terrible, -should make sure to test everything i post about…
Priests:
-The Divine Hymn cooldown change is nothing but nice, I don’t even have to say it =p. Power Word: Shield being cast on non party/raid members will take some getting used too. I can’t think of many circumstances that this would be useful, only in world pvp/questing as you may see someone in danger, and as a disc priest your shields would really be helpful here.
-Seems that shadow got buffed this time around. With Improved Devouring Plague doing more damage, the range of Mind Flay being increased, Devouring Plague and Vampiric Touch benefiting from haste, and Vampiric Embrace becoming a self buff rather than using up a rotation slot is all very nice for the dps priest. I’ve only been shadow for a short period of my 80 career but I must say, it is a nice change of pace from healing. Gogo Spriests, these buffs make me want to try out the spec again :p.
-Shadowfiend not dying as easily sounds nice, although I’ve never had too much trouble with this as I shield mine when I need his mana gaining. ^^
User Interface:
-Being able to see only your debuffs on the target will be nice for shadow priests as well as other classes that need to manage things such as warlocks dots and death knights diseases. Consolidate Buffs, hmm, this addition seems to be more of a matter of preference than a necessity. I personally don’t like this option and won’t be using. I’d prefer to know what buffs I have rather than just the number. In raids, I don’t have time to mouse over this box and see what I may be missing.
Professions:
-Black Magic’s buff is way too obvious of a good thing. I’m sure this will be the mandatory enchant for shadow priests as well as a viable pvp enchant. I’ve used this on the ptr and well I really like it ^_^, the animation is also really neat, looks like the Unholy Weapon enchant from pre-tbc. Although, it’s always had this animation. -_-”
Items:
More buffs to shadow priests via glyphs! All three sound nice, no need to repeat them. :3
In general and at a glance, this patch looks like a good one for priests. At least, in my eyes it does. I didn’t think shadow priests were in need of such buffs but then again, I myself don’t play as shadow too often so correct me if I’m wrong =p. Oh and another note, the raptor hatchling pets will no longer drop from their rare spawn correspondents but from nests, I hope these are either as rare or fairly close to the spawned mobs as I camped those for hours. D:
Enjoy the changes!
